Speaker

Burkhard Sommer, Deputy Head Maritime Competence Center, PwC

Speaker Role: Co-head, PwC Maritime Center of Competence

Speaker Details:

Presentation: smartPORT, Hamburg
Digitalisation and the convergence between the physical and digital world – often called Internet of Things (IoT) is changing our life and will also change our business procedures. All parts of the logistics chain will be influenced by new technology, new processes and changed demands on employees who work in that sector.

Despite the fact that we are not able to talk about fully digitalised ports at the moment Western European ports are leading in developing and integrating new technologies in their processes to optimize the data exchange between the different stakeholders operating in the port areas.
The smartPORT initiative of the port of Hamburg is one of the beacon projects as well as the chainPORT initiative to optimize the experience exchange between several of the most important ports worldwide.

Nevertheless port digitalization will mean chances and challenges. Burkhard will elaborate on those aspects based on examples and he will provide an idea of the changed demands on the employees who are working in a changing business environment. Traditional jobs may disappear and new ones will be created.

Biography

Burkhard D. Sommer is the co-head of the maritime competence center of PwC Germany.

Burkhard has more than 13 years of comprehensive experience on projects for clients in the shipping sector, including several of the largest container shipping companies, shipyards, ship financing banks, terminal operators and other companies in the maritime industry. Additionally he worked on several projects in the transport and logistics sector internationally. Burkhard is also member of the transport & logistics team of PwC Europe.

Burkhard studied business management at the private university Nordakademie as part of a dual study and joined PwC in 2004. As a shipping expert he has been involved in strategic advisory restructuring and due diligence projects of maritime companies worldwide. He is a regular speaker at business schools and industry conferences with regard to shipping issues.